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Note: No longer in repertoire!
Cast Kristiina Elstelä, Hannele Lauri-Rinne, Susa Saukko
Control You Kujansuu
Translation Annu James
“Vagina Monologues, despite its serious mission, is terribly funny
play.” – Helsingin Sanomat / NYT supplement
The women’s task force says that vaginal monologues are a common cause
Read moreEvery house must have a basement. This is how the 72-year-old woman played by Kristiina Elstelä puts it. The audience hums, because everyone knows what we are talking about. Vagina Monologues, which has been praised, awarded and talked about around the world, premiered yesterday on the new Pasila stage of the Helsinki City Theatre. Set designer Jyrki Seppä had dressed the handsome theatre studio inherited from Theatre Pieni Suomi in dark blue. On the blue catwalk, almost two hours worth of vaginas are marched in front of the audience: young and old, ugly and beautiful, mistreated and caressed. Hannele Lauri-Rinne, Kristiina Elstelä and Susa Saukko all perform with honor in straightforward texts and demanding genres that turn into flashy stand-up. Saukko is the weakest of the trio, but he has also found himself in tough company. Lauri-Rinne and Elstelä are brilliant. All Lauri-Rinne has to do is glance, smile a little, and the audience is on their knees. And Elstelä. As a 72-year-old woman, she is so touching that it hurts, and as a 6-year-old girl, she is so exhilarating that I would like to start poking the person sitting next to me, to be six too. When Elstelä tells the audience to sing in three voices, it doesn’t even occur to them not to participate. With Elstelä, the audience experiences the most touching moments of the Vagina Monologues, although they are a bit rare. The performance is – to the mercy of the male viewer, though – surprisingly entertaining, almost completely uncontrollable. It feels like the tragic stories and more serious moments of the monologues are lost. In particular, Susa Saukko’s interpretation of the Muslim woman raped by soldiers is so skilfully distanced by visual tricks that the woman’s fate does not have time to hurt. The fault is not only Otter’s, but also the direction. In one of the monologues, they wonder why men want their vaginas washed and smell like rose petals. Why isn’t something that smells like a vagina good enough. Sina Kujansuu has fallen into the same trap in her direction. The presentation is so theatrical, the visual world so clinically stylish, the humour so underlined that there is no gripping surface left. As I said, the performance is reduced, perhaps better resolved, by stand-up. It may be that there is also a “reason” in Eve Ensler’s American, New York original text. But could the text have been transferred without the culture’s slippery tradition of performance? In the middle of the blue catwalk is a small puddle, a vagina, I assume. People talk over the pond and walk around it in flashy evening dresses, but they don’t touch the water.
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